Previous | Session 23 | Next | Author Index | Block Schedule
Th. de Graauw, N.D. Whyborn, P. Dieleman, W. Jellema (SRON-Groningen), J. Kooi (CalTech, Pasadena), W. Luinge (SRON-Groningen), T. Marston (ESAC, Villafranca), T. Peacocke (NUI, Maynooth), D. Teyssier (SRON-Groningen and ESAC)
The Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) is a high-resolution (>300.000), spectrometer for ESA's Herschel Space Observatory. The instrument is designed to provide a wide and continuous frequency coverage with velocity resolved resolution and high sensitivity. The instrument comprises 5 frequency bands covering 480-1150 GHz with SIS mixers and a sixth dual frequency band for the 1410-1910 GHz range with Hot Electron Bolometer Mixers (HEBM). One frequency band is operating at a time with a single sky-pixel. The Local Oscillator (LO) subsystem consists of a Ka-band synthesiser followed by 14 chains of frequency multipliers, 2 chains for each frequency band. Each frequency band has two mixers operating on orthogonal polarisations. All mixers are designed to have noise performance close to the quantum noise limit. A pair of Auto-Correlators and a pair of Acousto-Optic spectrometers process the two IF signals from the dual-polarisation front-ends and provide instantaneous frequency coverage of 4 GHz, with a set of resolutions (140 KHz to 1 MHz), better than < 0.1 Km/s. We will present the design and the first results of the pre-flight testing and characterization of the instrument.
Previous | Session 23 | Next
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.